1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to multiple-adapter multiple-monitor (MAMM) support based on Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM). More particularly, the present invention relates to supporting multiple display adapters from different manufacturers in the WDDM architecture.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the performance of personal computers (PCs) and the demands from users increase, there are usually a lot of applications running on a single PC at the same time. Sometimes the desktop area of the operating system gets crowded. For this issue, there is a trend to connect multiple display monitors to a single PC simultaneously in order to widen the desktop area.
Recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system support multiple-adapter multiple monitor (MAMM) to solve above addressed issue. For example, XP Display Driver Model (XDDM) of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system supports MAMM; Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system also supports MAMM. However, in WDDM the multiple display adapters have to be driven by a single common display driver. This is relatively easy for display adapters from the same manufacturer, since the manufacturer can fix its own display driver to drive multiple display adapters of the same manufacturer identification. On the other hand, using several display adapters from different manufacturers in Windows Vista is not so easy, since it is impractical to expect the manufacturers to cooperate to provide a common driver. In Windows Vista, the only solution is using multiple XDDM display drivers to drive multiple display adapters from different manufacturers because XDDM does not impose the single-driver requirement. However, XDDM display drivers do not support the latest WDDM architecture and do not support some latest software, such as DirectX 10.